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The FBI has released images of two suspects they say will help solve the Boston Marathon bombings.

The still photographs and video package, taken near the Boylston St. finish line where the bombs went off, show two men — one in a white cap and one in a black cap — who authorities described as suspects in the bombings, which killed three and injured more than 170 on Monday.

"Today, we are enlisting the public's help to identify the two suspects," Richard DesLauriers, the special agent in charge of the FBI's Boston field office, told a packed news conference Thursday.

DesLauriers described both men as "armed and extremely dangerous" and cautioned the public not to take any action on their own if either man is seen.

"We know the public will play a critical role in locating these two suspects," DesLauriers said. "Somebody out there knows these individuals. No bit of information is too small for us to see.

"Though it may be difficult, the nation is counting on those with information to come forward."

The suspect wearing the white cap, known as Suspect 2, was seen planting a backpack where one of the devices exploded.

"At this time, these are the people of interest to the FBI," he said.

Bloomberg News reports that Jeff Bauman, who had both of his legs blown off below the knees and was pictured in an iconic photograph being pushed in a wheelchair, told his brother Chris after surgery that he had seen one of the bombers.

Earlier, U.S. President Barack Obama left an interfaith service in Boston and its congregation of more than 2,000 people reassured that the work goes on to find the perpetrators behind the deadly Boston Marathon bombing.

He vowed that Americans would move beyond the attack by bringing the perpetrators to justice, and by refusing to live in fear.

"Yes, we will find you, and yes, you will face justice," Obama said. "But more than that, our fidelity to our way of life, to our free and open society, will only grow stronger."

Obama also honoured the injured, the maimed and the dead by focusing on three bystanders killed in the blast zone on the final stretch of the marathon.

The president was joined by the congregation inside the Cathedral of the Holy Cross on Boston's south side, and hundreds more who filled the streets outside, just a mile from where the bombs went off.

Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick offered Boston's response to the tragedy as an example to the rest of the country.

"We will have accountability without vengeance," Patrick said. "The grace this tragedy exposed is the best of who we are."